Agnetha Faltskog - Let It Shine

! Let It Shine was released as a single in 1988 with "Maybe It Was Magic" on the B-side. It was the last single released from Agnetha's 3rd English solo album "I Stand Alone" and was also Agnetha's last single before going into retirement at the end of the 1980's. However it failed to chart reaching #31 in Poland on April 8 1988.
The album "I Stand Alone" was produced by Peter Cetera, former lead singer and bass guitar player with American rock group Chicago. Agnetha and Peter met during a Red Cross telethon in Stockholm in 1986. During their first meeting Peter suggested to Agnetha that soon they should work together. Agnetha did not really take this offer seriously because in the music business many people have good intentions that never make it to reality. ``However to my surprise Peter and I started trans Atlantic communications about the project soon after we had met and we never let the idea die.'' Peter returned to Stockholm to help choose songs for this new album with Agnetha. For the first time Agnetha would not be surrounded by studio musicians whom she knew. She went off to America to work at Chartmaker Studios in Malibu, California. Although she hated to fly and to leave her children, Agnetha agreed to spend five weeks in America in the Summer of 1987 to do this album because producers Peter Cetera and Bruce Gaitsch wanted to use musicians and a studio that they were used to. "I Stand Alone" debuted in Sweden on November 9th 1987. It soon topped the album charts for 8 weeks selling over 170,000 copies. Agnetha did promotion work for this album by doing an interview and performing four songs from the album on Swedish television show Jacob's Ladder in November. Bruce Gaitch, the co-producer of the album, was special guest on the tv show. Later the same day Agnetha and Bruce were seen together at the restaurant "Cecil" in Stockholm having dinner. The date of worldwide release was January 15th 1988. The album was well received by its audience and praised by critics. Sales approached two million copies. Agnetha did many newspaper interviews. Swedish newspaper Expressen gave the album their highest grade 5 stars out of 5 and printed an interview on November 18 1987. Clic published this interview in October 1987.
"It all began when we met at UN's big children's gala here in Stockholm, where I sang a song with Ola Håkansson. Performing there was also Peter Cetera, who I already earlier had respected much, both as a songwriter and as a singer. And he liked a lot of what we (ABBA) had done earlier. Immediately we hit it off and loosely talked about doing something together in the future. We kept in touch through the record company and during the spring Peter became more and more interested and began to collect songs that he thought would fit me. Then when we met this summer, he had about 50 suggestions that we listened through. When we finally began to work on the album in America we tried out many songs. When the album was finished we had ended up with ten other songs, instead of the 15 songs we initially began with. Peter has written one of them together with Bruce Gaitsch and then there are a number of other American songwriters. It was an incredible experience. Everybody - Peter, the co-producer Bruce Gaitsch, the engineer and the studio musicians were really fantastic to work with. I didn't know them before but soon I realized that we were working with the best ones there were. And they praised me which was fun. We really connected with each other. There have been some heated discussions about my name but I really fought for it, that it should say Fältskog on the album even though it might be a bit difficult for some people to pronounce. I want to make at least two or three videos, mainly for the American market. Plus right now we're planning a TV-special which eventually will be broadcast in Europe sometime after New Year or soon thereafter. I don't like to compare albums, but I myself think that this one is better than my previous ones. The whole album feels very strong. My favourite is the duet "I Wasn't The One Who Said Goodbye" then there's also a very positive song that is called "Let It Shine", but I really like all of them. The photo session was also quite an experience. We arrived at the studio at lunchtime and they weren't ready to start taking pictures until around 4 pm, after make up, styling etc. When I first looked at myself in the mirror I thought I looked horrible and almost walked out of there. But once they started taking the photos, I saw that the result was good. The photographer was calm and nice and the hairdresser had many interesting ideas. He has cut Madonna's hair and I had a hard time convincing him not to cut my hair down to a one-centimeter crew cut!"
Let It Shine
(Austin Roberts / Bill LaBounty / Beckie Foster)